“I love you,” she says,
and my heart sinks.
Knowing what is required of me,
I attempt to reciprocate.
But it’s a struggle,
the words won’t take shape.
No other phrase is so hard to articulate;
no other sentiment is voiced so apprehensively.
I could be honest and say: I love you
but almost everything about you annoys me…
But somehow
those three precious, perilous syllables
are squeezed out, squeamishly:
“Isle… of you.”
It never sounds right when I say it,
but I say it
to put her at ease,
because what you get out of it,
temporarily,
is peace.

I have never entered a room
without hoping that the One
I am waiting for
might be found there.

Despite decades of disappointment,
I still look for her in every face,
looking for somebody to become that place
where everything that falls apart
falls into place.

But if I found her, I wouldn’t want her,
for as long as the possibility
of somebody else wanting me exists,
I will always want somebody else.

And I realize now that if she ever does arrive
it will not be in the prime of either of our lives,
at a cocktail party with a drink in her hand,
but that she is more likely to arrive holding a bedpan
as I am breathing my last in a hospital bed.

Only then, with restlessness and hope extinguished,
and all other options exhausted,
will I finally be ready
for the One.

Yet I honor this stale ceremony.
As if anything of value might be extracted from the refinement of futility.
Recoiling from the sight of these words dying on the page.
The results induce uneasiness and distaste, but I must press on and complete something for once in my life, even if it should have been expunged from my system twenty years ago and has grown irredeemably stale; even if it falls miserably short of my aim, not that I ever had an aim.
It would be nice if all this was building up to something. But it isn’t.
Nevertheless, I proceed.
Towards what futile end I know not.
I thought there was still time to get started but it’s almost all over.
Maybe I’ve done everything I was ever capable of doing.
Just because it went unnoticed doesn’t mean it’s not over.
At this rate, maybe, in ten years time, if I’m lucky, I might have completed something, if I live that long.
I certainly can’t blame anybody for their indifference. I already find my own interest waning.
There’s no point carrying on about it.
This is surely the lowest form of literary endeavor: driveling on about oneself.
What’s the point of actualizing oneself if nobody can relate to what you’re actualizing or derive derive any solace from it?
But it can be pleasant sitting here, stroking the keys in anticipation.
There’s nothing else I’d rather be doing. That’s the sad part… one of the saddest parts.

I could have been
ahead of my time;
I could have been
me.
Nevertheless, I proceed,
directionlessly,
hoping to profit
from useless hard-won knowledge,
and brooding about mortality –
about how depressing it is
that nobody knows my name,
and how inconvenient
that one has to die
in order to receive posthumous acclaim.
And worse still, that one
has to have accomplished something.
I must put that on my to-do list.
But what are you going to do
when the life you passively awaited
has slowly passed you by?
You can’t hate something
because you made it unattainable,
and you can’t resent other people
because you let yourself down.
But you can try.